“Russian Cyberspace: A Rent-Seeking Road to the
Digital Gulag“

The current research aims to analyze the evolution of the Russian segment of the internet (Runet) through the “generations of information controls” framework with a particular focus on the rent-seeking nature of Russian society.

While it is clear that technological changes bring new powerful tools to the hands of authoritarian rulers, an explanation of this phenomenon from purely political perspectives would oversimplify the problem.

On the one hand, authoritarian leaders indeed have enormous benefits from turning their countries into a kind of Orwellian surveillance world. On the other hand, countries like Russia widely exploit market mechanisms, and it is reasonable to assume that precisely the market sphere within the existing institutional arrangements strengthens the power of these regimes.

Dmitrii Trubnikov has a joint PhD degree (in Law) from Tilburg University and Bologna University, and a Candidate of Economic Sciences degree (the Russian name for PhD in Economics) from Samara State University of Economics. From 2019 to 2022 he worked as Associate Professor of the Department of Management at Saint Petersburg School of Economics and Management of HSE University (Russia), where he was also Academic Director of the Master in International Business program.

Dmitrii’s PhD research “The Competitive Order for the New Economy: Lessons from the Telecommunications Experience” was focused on the evolution of the European telecommunication sphere and its regulation. Currently, the areas of his research interests are connected to political economy, technological development, and public policy.